At 06:17 PM 5/2/03 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: ...
Perhaps more to the point, this list has always been about (at least I discovered it in late 1994) the social and political impacts of crypto and related technologies, and those are probably not incredibly friendly to a hyper-regulatory state.
Well, that part is still to be determined. Maybe the direction of technology will ultimately lead to the collapse of the nation state and the rise of David Friedman style anarchocapitalist protection agencies to replace it (good luck solving the military defense problem!), or maybe it will lead to a global, "ubiquitous governance" implementation of Singapore--clean streets, low crime, and economic productivity, all under the watchful eye of the state. Or another zillion possibilities, including the apparently more likely ones that include continuing existence and power of states, but with a change in the balance of powers in different areas--no privacy in public, but enormous privacy in what you do on your computer at home, etc. Or an expansion of the current situation, where the new technology results in less privacy from the government, but enormously more privacy from neighbors and family members. (Think of cellphones, cordless phones, the internet, and home video rentals. For most people, keeping their nosy neighbors from knowing they watch porno films is more important than keeping the FBI from knowing.)
So, yes, the "Klansmen, feminists, nazis, Libertarians of any sort, Democrats, Greens, Republicans" are welcome. But may we ask in turn that they appreciate the vocabulary and literature?
A huge amount of the value of this list, for me at least, is that events and news are seen through the lens of a certain kind of skepticism that only security people seem to have, along with some technological sophistication and a willingness to "think the unthinkable." This is consistent with a wide range of political and social and religious beliefs. It's how you can mix anarchocapitalists and greens and anarchocommunists and various flavors of libertarians and various others, and still get an interesting list with real discussion on it, instead of endless flamewars.
-Declan
--John Kelsey, kelsey.j@ix.netcom.com PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259